I'm starting a thread to track the right-wing attacks on LGBT people, especially for political gains. Let me remind you that Rod Dreher, homophobe and Christianist extraordinaire, told us that these were the people we needed to be nice to and not disrespect their "deeply held beliefs" after marriage equality became law of the land. Clearly the fight is far from over and these people and their hatred for something that doesn't even concern them need to be beaten into the dirt.

An openly gay former councilman in a small Southeast Texas town is suing after he was defeated in a recall election, an effort that surfaced when nude photos of him were anonymously sent to city hall.

Cross Coburn was ousted as a councilmember in Groves, Texas, which is 92 miles (148 kilometers) east of Houston, during a recall election earlier this month. The lawsuit filed Nov. 14 in a state court asks the court to declare the election invalid due to “deficiencies, fraud and forgery” in the recall petition. The petition came after Coburn’s nude photos, which were sent in private communication on a gay dating app, were mailed to city hall by an anonymous source.

Coburn says the recall effort targeted him because of his sexuality.

“They thought this was a very surefire way to get me out of office,” he said in an interview Tuesday.

Despite the loss, Coburn, who grew up in Groves and turned 20 years old on Tuesday, said he’s confident he will get justice through the litigation.

The City of Groves and its city clerk, Kimbra Lowery, are listed as defendants.

Coburn’s lawyer, Jill Swearingen Pierce, accused Mayor Brad Bailey and his allies on the city council of leaking the nude photos to media to stir up attention for the recall petition.

The mayor did not return a message seeking comment on Tuesday.

In September, Bailey said he was glad about the recall election going forward and said “I think you should be held to a higher position up here and his track record speaks for itself,” according to a Texas Monthly article.

Pierce says three people have reported their petition signatures were forgeries and a forensic handwriting expert has questioned the authenticity of dozens of petition signatures. She said they are in the process of collecting signatures used in past public records to compare with the questionable signatures.

One of the three people said she did sign the recall petition for her and her husband, but reported that the signatures on a specific page of the petition were not signed by her.

The litigation argues there are other issues with the recall petition. Several residents have two signatures on the petition, according to the suit, and there are instances where one spouse signed for themselves and their significant other.

" 'Individual conscience' means that women only get contraceptives if their employers, their physicians, their pharmacists, their husbands and/or fathers, pastors, and possibly their mayors, Governors, State Secretaries of Health, Congressmen, Senators, and President all agree that in that particular case they're justifiable." --D.C. Sessions

"That's the problem with being implacable foes - no one has any incentive to treat you as anything more than an obstacle to be overcome."

"The 'Road to Serfdom' is really all right turns." --Progressive Whisperer

""The GOP ... where every accusation is also a confession." --Progressive Whisperer

An organization for LGBT rights is hoping to get a bill passed in Utah that would ban the mental abuse known as "conversion therapy." There is little else coming from the Christianist right that is more vile than this particularly form of abuse, often perpetrated on children.

Quote

A conversion therapy ban in Utah might sound unlikely to some given the state’s LGBT reputation—but that’s exactly what LGBT advocates are planning for next year, as the Salt Lake Tribune reported earlier this week.

They believe that it will pass because of Utah rather than in in spite of it.

“This is Utah, so of course there’s going to be a great chance,” Troy Williams, executive director of Equality Utah, cheerily told The Daily Beast of the bill’s prospects. “People always underestimate what we do here in the state. We have developed a really strong relationship with the legislature, with the governor’s office, and we feel very strongly that we have a lot of support.”

As the Tribune first reported, Equality Utah has drafted legislation that would ban the medically discredited practice of trying to change a minor’s sexual orientation or gender identity.

Williams told The Daily Beast that the effort is “still in that laying-the-groundwork phase” of speaking with legislators to secure a potential sponsor, and that more updates on the process will be forthcoming in early January.

So far, according to the Movement Advancement Project, 14 states and D.C. have banned conversion therapy for minors. Republican governors have signed several of those bills into law in states like New Hampshire, Maryland, and Nevada—proof of an emerging bipartisan consensus that conversion therapy is harmful and unethical.

Williams believes there’s a strong chance the Mormon church—formally known as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints—will not put obstacles in the path of a conversion therapy ban.

That would be a monumental step for the LDS church, which continues to be opposed to same-sex marriage and asks gay members to remain celibate in order to stay in good standing. (The LDS church did not immediately respond to The Daily Beast’s request for comment on this story.)

Despite those positions, LDS officials wrote in 2016 on the church's Mormon and Gay website that although “shifts in sexuality can and do occur for some people, it is unethical to focus professional treatment on an assumption that a change in sexual orientation will or must occur”—a clear reference to conversion therapy.

That statement marks a departure from previous positions and statements from LDS leaders on the topic.

" 'Individual conscience' means that women only get contraceptives if their employers, their physicians, their pharmacists, their husbands and/or fathers, pastors, and possibly their mayors, Governors, State Secretaries of Health, Congressmen, Senators, and President all agree that in that particular case they're justifiable." --D.C. Sessions

"That's the problem with being implacable foes - no one has any incentive to treat you as anything more than an obstacle to be overcome."

"The 'Road to Serfdom' is really all right turns." --Progressive Whisperer

""The GOP ... where every accusation is also a confession." --Progressive Whisperer

Only a handful become law—like 2015’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act in Indiana, North Carolina’s “bathroom bill” in 2016, and Mississippi’s infamous HB 1523 in 2017.

Last year, two states—Kansas and Oklahoma—passed laws targeting LGBT adoption, carving out room for religious child welfare agencies to deny placement with same-sex couples. Legal challenges against those laws are currently underway.

Now, at the start of 2019–with state legislatures opening for business in the coming weeks—LGBT advocates are turning their attention forward to future battles. Although they say the overall outlook is favorable compared to previous years, there are still plenty of possible pitfalls ahead, especially in Georgia, where Brian Kemp has already indicated he would sign a “religious freedom” measure, and in Texas, where lawmakers may once again try to pass a “bathroom bill” after failing to do so in 2017.

Masen Davis, CEO of the advocacy group Freedom for All Americans, is optimistic that most of the anti-LGBT bills that emerge in 2019 will be dead in the water.

“I think we are living in a challenging time,” he told The Daily Beast, “but the majority of people at this point know a gay or lesbian person. More and more people are starting to understand transgender people and issues. And as a movement, we learned valuable lessons from 2018.”

Indeed, despite the Trump administration’s stance on LGBT issues, LGBT advocates saw a string of state and local-level victories in 2018 that were driven by cultural change. There were conversion therapy bans passed in Washington State, Hawaii, Delaware, Maryland, and New Hampshire. Voters in Anchorage, Alaska and in Massachusetts voted to protect transgender people at the ballot box. New Hampshire added gender identity to its anti-discrimination law, joining every other state in New England.

Davis told The Daily Beast that LGBT leaders “learned valuable lessons from 2018,” like how to effectively debunk the myth that transgender protections lead to an increase in restroom assaults, and that they’re ready to “hit the ground running in 2019.”

But that doesn’t mean there won’t be major crises this year in which LGBT leaders end up having to play defense. Freedom for All Americans, for example, is anticipating potential trouble in both Georgia and Texas.

Once again the blue states move forward and the red states devolve into their comforting blanket of bigotry. Without people to demonize and to treat as inferiors under the law they wouldn't know what to do with themselves.

" 'Individual conscience' means that women only get contraceptives if their employers, their physicians, their pharmacists, their husbands and/or fathers, pastors, and possibly their mayors, Governors, State Secretaries of Health, Congressmen, Senators, and President all agree that in that particular case they're justifiable." --D.C. Sessions

"That's the problem with being implacable foes - no one has any incentive to treat you as anything more than an obstacle to be overcome."

"The 'Road to Serfdom' is really all right turns." --Progressive Whisperer

""The GOP ... where every accusation is also a confession." --Progressive Whisperer